BookAwards

Manach

Given the recent lit-awards of the Nobel and Booker (given to VS Naipaul & Peter Carey respectively), both of whom I have minimum exposure to, I'm wondering this.

In general, are such awards just recognition for good works and give the author a better public profile or are they a system of self-promotation for a small cliche of snobby literati.

Opinions?

Von

Extract from Attack! Books Manifesto regarding the literary establishment.

Why do you hate "serious novelists"?

Because the word "serious" is used here to describe a form of fiction that is stunted, conservative and willfully dull - and yet regards itself as inherently superior to writing that is
a) actually about something
b) where sh!t actually happens and
c) isn't as boring as fuk.
David Lodge, for instance, is (or was - is he dead yet?) an English Lit prof who writes books about English Lit profzzzzzz...excuse me, I dozed off there. 
The serious novel is monotonous. Literally. It's a one trick pony. It's obsessed with the psychological. Attack!'ll give you the psychological, sexual, social, political and visceral 12 times per mad para plus huge guns, massive tits, enormous cocks, deranged rhetoric, gasping ****s, ginormous explosions, insane aliens et-frikkin-cetera. MORE IS MORE! 

Most of truly great novelists - Defoe, Swift, Orwell, Leyner, Shelley, Stoker (blah blah blah) were HACKS slamming out GENRE writing for a mass audience. Science ****ing fiction for the most part. Is there anybody out there who seriously thinks Rushdie is fit to eat the sweetcorn out of William Gibson's sh1t? That Amis is qualified to lick Alan Moore's boots clean? That Virginia Wolf contributed a single character with as much emotional depth and impact as the impoverished hack who banged out Superman? Come on? Really? 

When we talk about "serious" literature we're talking about a self-perpetuating ponce oligarchy of mutually back-slapping semi-talents with an incredibly conservative aesthetic and a truly pathetic grasp of the language's potential. 

If you study Eng Lit at  university - do you discuss comics? Does Alan Moore's Watchmen even get a mention? Can you imagine doing a media studies course that ignored television?  We are pro-intellectual. We are pro-literate. Dumb-up - you semi-educated elitist fuks.  

Draco

Originally posted by Von
Does Alan Moore's Watchmen even get a mention?

Apparently Alan Moore's daughter did some English Lit. course in college and the lecture had Watchmen on the course. she showed her dad the notes and he said something along the lines of "That's all a bunch of cobblers" and rang the lecture and told him so.

Von

Draco if you have a source for that could you post it here ta?

Draco

Originally posted by Von
Draco if you have a source for that could you post it here ta?

I can't remeber where I seen that orginally - it was a good while ago and a quick google hasn't turned up anything.

SweetBirdOfTruth

so "genre fiction" is cool and "serious fiction" is crap, eh? and did you by any chance lk at the booker list, long or short, and note the genres? more than half the listed books concerend thelves with the war. the long list fave - bainbridge - and the actual winner - carey - are both writing a strain of hisorical fiction.

frankly, there are only gd bks and bad bks (and btw, a lot of the bks i see folk raving about round here i personally would throw in the bin with rushdie)

Von

Historical fiction is written by boring academics. Sven Hassel is proper historical fiction but he didn't win too many pulitzers. Take a look at the judges of the booker. Is anyone meant to take anything Kenneth Baker (slimy tory Lord Of Dorking) says at all seriously? Really?

The booker used to allow publishers to enter 3 books, two they thought had a good chance of winning (conservative types) and maybe one that was a bit of a long shot. Now they can only enter two because the judges complained that they had too many titles to read. They get paid nothing for their trouble. In addition, new rules mean that any authors who have previously won or been shortlisted can be entered. A while back there was some guardian article about how corrupt the whole thing is. Judges were "recommended" to read certain books and apparently the publishers have it all rigged. So it's all nonsense basically.

SweetBirdOfTruth

to defend the booker (no one else round here is likely to, so why not let it fall to me). as well as the bks nominated by the publishers, the jury ***must*** call in a min number (can't remember what) other books. there's an upper limit as well.

i think this year's long list had quite a few gd and interesting titles on it, and even the final shortlist, with number9dream on it, wasn't too bad.

given all the betting on carey and mcewan this yr, i'd say they were close to be almost populist in their choice (of course, to be truely populist, it would have been mcewan, as he's easily out selling carey).

the gruan has published many articles on the booker, some anti, quite a few pro. if you want i'll provide you the urls but i expect you've already seen them.

your gripe is simply that the type of books you like don't win prizes that other types of books win. so what? what does that prove? when was the last time beryl bainbidge got nominated in - say - best fantasy fiction awards?

you want to replace one form of elitism with another, with the other being to ***your*** taste in fiction (and i have to confess, since i left my teenager years behind me, sven hassel has not been my taste of fiction). you're just tilting at windmills my friend. get over it.

Von

Originally posted by SweetBirdOfTruth
your gripe is simply that the type of books you like don't win prizes that other types of books win.

You don't get it do you? The booker is there to sell books which belong to a particular fashion of very boring fiction to people who rely on snobby academics to tell them what's "good". It's a marketing scam. It has nothing to do with progress in literature or anything like that. James Kelman has spent years going on about the elitism and conservatism in the English literary establishment. You might want to read some of his essays on the subject.

SweetBirdOfTruth

i do get it. but just because it's bookered doesn't put it on my list. i have no beef with the booker one way or the other. fine, yes, i'd love if a bk i'm actually likely to rd won (i think i've only ever rd two winners), or even if a bk by an author i'm likely to rd would one (have rd maybe five winning authors). but it makes no odds to me if they choose something/someone i'm never going to rd.

evrything's about marketing. getting yr bk picked for the oprah winfrey book of the month thingey is all about selling bks too, you know. getting your bk picked for some detective fiction or sci-fi award, that's marketing too.

all prizes - whether they be for "serious" lit or sci-fi - are (in their own way) elitist.

re kelman - is that the one that was on the booker long list this yr? or the one he won with in 94?

Von

Originally posted by SweetBirdOfTruth
all prizes - whether they be for "serious" lit or sci-fi - are (in their own way) elitist.

True enough. This is why they should be ignored. They can't help but be conservative and bloated with their own pomposity and arrogance.

re kelman - is that the one that was on the booker long list this yr? or the one he won with in 94?

That's him yes. He was glad of the money. But just as it took years for his stuff to become fashionable, there are other writers out there pushing at the envelope of acceptability and trying to do something original and progressive. Joyce had Dubliners pulped by a publisher, Flann O'Brien's 2nd novel was rejected, Kerouac was thrown out of publishers' offices and Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon was called "obscene" by the Pulitzer advisory board. Steven Wells asked Will Self's publishers "Why has he got a book contract?". After they'd both reviewed the same Oasis gig, he put his and Self's reviews side by side on a sheet and sent them off to the publishers, along with the first chapter of his first novel and demanded a contract. It was on the proviso that he was offered more money than Will Self was, given the obvious difference in their talent as Wells saw it. That kind of thing.

SweetBirdOfTruth

and your point is ... that the world ain't fair? my god no! so it isn't so, joe!

at the end of the day, to each their own.

Von

Originally posted by SweetBirdOfTruth
and your point is ... that the world ain't fair? my god no! so it isn't so, joe!

No, more like self appointed regulators of the production of art should be battered feverishly with hammers. Lump hammers.